


fill the space between my bones

by sarcasticfishes



Category: American Actor RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-31 18:59:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1035264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcasticfishes/pseuds/sarcasticfishes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He kept moving across the continent, looking for a place that might be safe. He didn’t find anything. But it was down South where he found <i>her</i>. An empty village was a good place to look for supplies but a bad place for a girl to get cornered by two biters. </p><p>Or: Dylan meets a girl on the run and, well, the rest was inevitable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fill the space between my bones

**Author's Note:**

> I've been catching up on The Walking Dead a lot recently (still on season 3, oops) and I'm sort of head-over-heels for Dylan, so this happened. Unbeta'd, please point out any mistakes. There's some non-graphic violence, but that's a given with zombie AUs, I think. Sex. There's sex too.

He learned to fend for himself when he realised everyone else was gone. Separated or dead, he didn’t really know, and he didn’t trust himself to find out. It played hell with his psyche, and the one thing he couldn’t afford to lose now was his mind. It was pretty much the last thing he had going for him.

He figured out the rules pretty quickly. Kill or be killed. The biters had no mercy, and soon neither did he. Just as quickly, he understood that celebrity status meant nothing anymore. It was kind of a no brainer to him – everyone looked after themselves, regardless of who they were, or who they were up against. It was kind of a pity that others didn’t get that quite as quickly as him, and he watched them sink like battleships.

He had a truck, and he lived out of that, kept moving across the continent, looking for a place that might be safe. He didn’t find anything.

But it was down south where he found _her_.

An empty village was a good place to look for supplies but a bad place for a girl to get cornered by two biters. Dylan didn’t think twice about it, a knife to the back of the skull each, they slumped to the floor, she pressed herself far back into the corner and stared at him with wide eyes, breathing heavily.

She raised a gun.

“Don’t touch me.”

He dropped his knife, “Wasn’t planning on it.”

“Don’t think I won’t use this.”

“I think you’ll use it on me if you have to. You didn’t want to shoot those two-” he kicked one of the corpses, and she jerked the gun. He didn’t flinch though, expected it, “-because there might be more outside. But obviously, I got in here unscathed. There are no more. Now you have no qualms about pulling that trigger.”

“I know you,” she said, “I know your face.”

“Doesn’t matter now,” he shrugged, hands raised in surrender, “I won’t hurt you.”

She licked her lips, slowly lowered the gun. Her hands shook, but she squared her shoulders, and he stood back to let her out of the corner.

“Thank you,” she breathed, once she was able to put her body between him and the door, not the other way around, “You’re right. I didn’t want to shoot.”

“I left my gun in my truck,” he said, “for the same reason.”

“I’d be a goner,” _if you hadn’t been around._

He swallowed thickly, reaching down to get his knife from the floor, wiping the blade along his thigh. She followed the movement warily, hand close to her weapon as he tucked the hunting knife into his belt.

“I already said I wouldn’t hurt you.”

“It’s not safe. I’ve run into men around here before. They’re- feral, almost.”

His stomach plummeted, and he saw in her face that she knew he understood.

“You told me not to touch you,” he said, “and I won’t.”

After a few moments of silence she stepped forward, hand outstretched.

“I’m Lisa.”

“Dylan.”

“Ah,” she said, closing her fingers around his. Then he pulled away, grabbed a discarded shopping-basket from the floor of the mini-mart.

“I just wanted to stock up. I mean no trouble.”

“Go ahead,” she said softly, “Free country.”

Only it wasn’t really free at all, and Dylan scoffed a little, picking up a can of beans and throwing it into his basket.

She walked him back to his truck.

“You’re the first person I’ve talked to in a while.”

“Same,” he admitted.

“Are you sleeping in this truck?”

“Nowhere else is safe.”

The expression on Lisa’s face was pained for a moment, and Dylan placed his hand on the side of the truck, wiping his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. The South was hotter than he remembered it ever being, but at least it meant that the biters rotted away quicker. Better than living up north where the cold preserved them, even if it slowed them down.

“You seem trustworthy.”

“I keep saying-”

“I have a safe place. I live alone. I could use an extra hand defending the place, taking care of the land.”

Again, he didn’t have to think twice.

He followed her motorcycle in his truck, pretty deep into the forest. There was a cabin.

“We’re going to have to be a team,” she said.

“We’re going to have to trust each other.”

“Let’s just focus on the first one. The second will come naturally with it.”

The cabin was situated on roughly an acre of land, enclosed by a tall wire fence. Dylan wondered if she had erected it herself, but she answered the question for him by telling him that the place belonged to a farmer, who got bitten and shot himself. She hadn’t thought he would mind if she took over.

It was a nice set up. One bed, one bath, and she seemed to be growing vegetables for herself in a plot near the house. There was a well a little outside the enclosure that the house connected too, giving them running water. There was no electricity, but gas and oil lamps did a perfectly fine job, and the stove kept the cabin warm.

“But a friendly reminder, out here a gunshot won’t attract much attention if you try come near me.”

He understood her trepidation, but, “I said. Not gonna hurt you. I’m not like that. I don’t care about that. I care about surviving.”

It seemed like the right thing to say, and he got his first smile from her, as she held open the door for him while he took his things out of the truck.

“Make yourself at home on the sofa.”

Things got easier after that. Supply runs were easier, two people were better than one, and Dylan had honestly missed human conversation. He missed having someone to snap back at him, wit and sass and sarcasm. Lisa had all of that, and he appreciated it to no end.

“I went to MIT,” she said, and he nearly choked on his water, “Electronics and engineering.”

“No way,” he muttered.

“Way,” she nodded, “You?”

He shook his head, “Didn’t go to college. I was an actor. A musician, too, kinda.”

“Creative,” she said, nodding towards him.

“Technical,” he replied, gesturing towards her.

“Opposites attract,” she said idly.

All he could do was smirk.

Winter was tougher, because food became low and the season didn’t bode well for the plantation they had going on.

Lisa could hunt, with a crossbow, and caught more than her fair share of game. She tried to teach him, and said he was too loud, too clumsy with the bow. That he was better with traps. Dylan made a joke about her being the Katniss to his Gale, all the while tugging on her braid. She playfully pinched one of his cheeks, flushed from the cold, and told him, “You’re no Gale. You’re too– _good_.”

Later, he would bring her a cup of hot water and mint, take her feet in his lap and listen to her talk about anything and everything, until they both dozed off. He would swear on his life that she blearily murmured, “ _Yes_ , definitely _a Peeta.”_

Christmas was celebrated with a non-descript bird and a bottle of wine pilfered from the cellar of a house on the edge of town. Dylan got a little merry and fell asleep in the chair next to the stove, woke with a blanket draped over him.

Lisa opened up considerably in the first nine months, but occasionally he rubbed her up the wrong way. She would freeze when he came up behind her, maybe to reach for something on the shelf above her head. She hated him touching her wrists. He wondered – _it’s not safe, I’ve run into men around here before_ – but didn’t ask. He didn’t want to rock the boat.

They ran low on medical supplies in the spring, having salvaged nearly every building in the town. There was a suburb on the other side, but it was dangerous. Nonetheless they got down to their last roll of gauze, and something had to be done.

They always went out on missions together. It was all or nothing. Neither of them could go back to working alone, _living alone_ , so why risk having to?

They parked the car outside the suburbs, snuck into the first house on the row. It was quiet, and they found the bathroom on the first floor had a range of medications, bandages, utensils, and everything was swept into a backpack without a second glance.

Out the window, Dylan saw a walker in the street and mentioned it to Lisa. She nodded, pressed her finger to her lips. They moved up to the next floor, doing the same with the bathroom there too. Lisa got to the master bedroom first, the one with the en-suite bathroom, and swept everything off the counter into her backpack, Dylan in the room behind her, checking the nightstands for anything that might come in handy.

Movement in the hallway stopped them both in their tracks, a soft rasping noise audible from the other side of the door left ajar.

Dylan felt his pulse in his throat, saw Lisa freezing up with terror. He grabbed her arm and slowly moved her backwards with him, into the closet with the slatted doors.

The biter, or _walker_ as Lisa called them, moved into the room just as Dylan got the door closed. For eight and a half terrifying minutes, it ambled around the room, groaning, dragging itself, coming so close to the door of the closet that Dylan reached for his knife, and Lisa shook so hard he thought she might have been having a seizure.

But finally it left, and Lisa let out a muffled sob. She jerked her arm, and Dylan realised he’d been squeezing her hand, her _wrist_ , so tightly that the skin was hot under his fingers. He was shaking too, breathing heavily against the back of her neck. When they moved out of the closet a few minutes later, Lisa’s wrist was bright red, in the shape of his fingers, and he felt a pang of guilt at the sight.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she said, “You were trying to keep me quiet.”

The way she said it, though, sort of tore him up. A form of acceptance – he had hurt her, so she shut her mouth until he let go. He tried not to think about it too much. Hated it.

“I was trying to keep you safe.”

“It’s fine, Dylan. Let’s just go.”

It wasn’t _that_ fine. She was quiet all the way home.

Something shifted in their relationship, for a while. Lisa was quiet again for a few days, slowly became more chatty again, but kept her distance. She sat at the opposite end of the sofa, ate her meals alone, went to bed early to avoid him. He didn’t ask for fear of pushing her farther away. He didn’t want to be alone again.

Reconnaissance trips took them to a school outside the town, where they found yet more medical supplies, non-perishables in the cafeteria. But there was a scuffle with a swarm of the biters. A dozen of them, at least, and Dylan was shaking and covered in blood when they leave.

He was sitting on the couch, dazed, when Lisa called him from the door of the bathroom. He twisted to look at her. They were both grimy and pale, but he’d gotten the brunt of the attack. He’d scrubbed clean what he could in the sink, cold and shivering. But his skin still crawled, felt like it belonged to something else.

“I filled the tub,” she said, and he thought he’d misheard her.

“What?”

“I heated water on the stove, remember. You saw me do it? There’s warm water in the tub.”

His mouth opened and closed, head foggy from the diminishing adrenaline.

_“What?”_

“I filled the tub with warm water for you. Take a bath.”

He blinked sleepily, “Okay.”

He stripped, caught sight of his body in the cracked, full-length wall-mirror. It seemed stupid now, but he’d always had issues with his body before this. Now, he really couldn’t care. The carefully maintained diet he and Lisa lived on made him lean, healthy. Working in the garden, carrying equipment, recon trips – they made him stronger. He had scars and burns now where he never had before. Muscle too.

He blinked a few times at his reflection, and then climbed into the plastic bathtub.

The warm water felt like it was filling up the cold spaces in his bones, returning him to human form. He sunk down under the surface, and then emerged a few seconds later, hair plastered to his forehead (he needed a haircut, badly), Lisa watching from the doorway.

“Good?” she asked.

“Mmm,” he hummed, and then opened an eye at her, feeling guilty, “Do you want to come in?”

She froze, and he kind of regretted saying it already.

“What?”

“We’re both filthy, both cold. You should come in too.”

“Someone needs to keep look out.”

He sighed.

“Lisa, let your guard down for five minutes with me, and then you never ever have to do it again, ever. I promise. Come relax with me, please?”

“Dylan-”

“Look, Lisa, I get that you’re never going to really _trust_ me the way I want you too, but you should know by now-”

“ _Okay_ ,” she snapped, and lifted her shirt over her head, quickly. Naked, she climbed in between his knees, her back to his chest. She sunk below the water like he had, emerging with her long hair clinging to her skin. She had once said she knew she should cut it, to make things easier for herself. But it was the only remaining luxury she had. And her mother hand always loved her hair. He loved her hair too, so dark it was almost black, but shone almost chestnut in direct sunlight.

Many times, he’d compared it to a ravens wing, changing colour in the light. Many times, she made fun of him for him. Now, heavy with water, it was jet black, like soot curling over her shoulders.

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her back against him, suddenly hit by the _trust_ she had bestowed upon him here. He knew she hated him standing behind her, she hated anything behind her back, but here she was most vulnerable, and showing it to him.

He took the washcloth from the edge of the bath, wiped away the dirt and grime from her face carefully, then her neck and collarbones, and she hummed contentedly, head against his shoulder.

“This is nice.”

“Mmm.”

“Naked, but nice.”

“Mmm,” he pressed his face again her neck, hiding his smile in her skin.

They wrapped up in the same towel, a large red one that they had snagged from one of the suburban houses, and Dylan wiped her face with a corner, to dry off the stray droplets sliding down from her hairline.

She smiled at him, exposed, and he thought about kissing her. Then he thought about her reaction, about how she could close up on him again, stronger than before, and he wouldn’t be able to prise that trust open again. The thought alone, the thought of losing her, made his stomach clench, and his heart ache, so her quashed down that want, and hugged her tight against him instead.

She pulled on a t-shirt of his, nothing else, leaving him in the big towel, sitting on her bed. She checked the windows, a quick glance around the perimeter confirmed they were safe for the night. She locked the door and dimmed the lamps.

“You right, you know,” she said, “It’s been over a year. I know you won’t hurt me.”

He looked at her, confused.

“Okay.”

She touched his neck softly, running her fingers down the line  of his jugular, to the dip between his collarbones, and then slowly she pushed the towel away. Slowly, he moved his hand upward, grasping the edge of the t-shirt to pull her closer.

When she moved back, he thought he’d done something wrong, but she pulled out the crate from underneath the bed, the medical supplies they’d gathered. There was a box of condoms. Dylan had seen them before, they were still good for another year or so.

“Do you want to?” she asked. He swallowed. Honesty was the best policy.

“Yeah. But I’m not- It’s not what I’m here for.”

“I know. But it _has_ been a year,” she said, warily, “By now, you would have…”

“Maybe I’m just patient,” he said, holding her gaze, leaning back on his elbows, naked. She licked her lower lip.

“Maybe that’s why I want this so much.”

His mouth opened to say _you shouldn’t_ , but he closed it again, tongue feeling too thick for his mouth. She placed her knee by his hip, and asked again.

“Do you want to?”

He reached out for her, nodded, “Of course.”

Then she asked, “Do you want _me_?”

And he nodded, “Of _course_ ,” with his eyebrows drawn, like he couldn’t believe she could think otherwise.

He put the condom on, let her straddle him.

“Like this?” he asked, and he wanted to know if she was wet. Her legs shook, like she was scared, and he wanted to take his time with her, but it seemed like she didn’t want to take her time at all. He pressed his fingers to her, surprised by the slickness. He already knew he wanted her, just hadn’t known that she wanted him.

“No,” she said, tugging his shoulders as she rolled down onto the bed, “I want you- over me. Like this.”

He nodded, licking his lips again, mouth suddenly dry.

“Can I kiss you?”

“I’d be upset if you didn’t.”

He did. He kissed her long, and slow, lifting her leg around his waist as her mouth opened against his, warm and wet, and then he kissed her harder as she wound her fingers into his hair, rocked her hips against him like she wanted him inside her _right now_.

“Okay,” he breathed, “okay. Steady.”

She whined, like there wasn’t time to go steady, but he made her slow down and relax.

“It’s been a while. Even before you,” she said, “So-”

“Careful,” he nodded. “I know. I got you.”

He sunk down inside her, slow and slick, he back arching to accommodate him. The warmth rushed over him, the wet heat of her pussy around him, the dry scorch of her palm against his back. He pressed his lips to her ear, holding still until she writhed, needing him to move.

He gasped as her nails stung, rasped against his skin, and he pushed her hands down on the bed – not restraining, never forceful, but lacing his fingers with hers and anchoring her there. She pushed up against him, his hips against hers, flush, and then not as he pulled back, withdrew until he almost wasn’t even inside her anymore, and she whined again, breathing out his name.

“Please, _fuck_ , Dylan. I need this, come on. You. I need you.”

He’d never heard her beg before. For anything. He always gave it without hesitation.

He thrust slowly back inside her, building the pace, slow and wet and dirty, revelling in the way her pink little mouth opened to cry out his name, and he pressed his lips to her neck to suck a dirty bruise into flesh below her ear.

He couldn’t remember it ever feeing like this, even before, and he told her so as she wrapped her legs tighter around him.

“Harder,” she said, her fingers squeezing tighter around his, and he obliged with his mouth against her pulse, murmuring her name. When she was close, he detangled their fingers on one hand, sliding down her body as she gathered a fistful of his hair and held on.

His fingers brushed her opening, feeling where he filled her, the heat right there under his fingers, wet and noisy between them. She moaned as he spread his fingers over her pelvic bone, thumb resting against her clit, between her folds.

“Please,” she murmured, and that word _again_ , was like a trigger, and her thighs clasped his hips as he touched her, back bowing as she came around him, and he was right there with her, floating on the edge and falling over as she pulled his hair, roughly pushing their mouths together with white light bursting behind his eyelids.

She held him there for a long time, his arms aching with the effort of not just collapsing against her, but it was hard considering he hadn’t come like that in as long as he could remember.

She slept sprawled across him, until he got out of bed in the middle of the night, pulled on a pair of sweatpants and grabbed his knife.

Outside, there was a walker at the fence, lazily pushing against it, rasping. He imagined it could smell them, hear them, more alive and human than they had been in years, with the smell of sex lingering on them.

He drove the knife into its skull through the wire lattices, and it fell away. He washed his hands and blade one he’d checked the rest of the perimeter, and climbed back into the bed with Lisa, where she once again wrapped her body around his, without hesitation.

She made tea in the morning just the way he liked it. The water scalding, a rich red-gold with a mint leaf in. He told her he loved her, and she said the same, her face against his shoulder like she was embarrassed. But he didn’t care. He sunk down her body with kisses, made her come again with his mouth and fingers, her hand cupping the back of his neck and her lips telling him not to stop.

That evening, she held open the bedroom door for him and said, “You can move your stuff in here, if you like.”

Things stayed mostly the same, but she would curl up next to him on the couch in the evening now, and sometimes she would press him up against the door and push her cold hands under his shirt to get warm, or she would pull his arms around her body in the dark.

It warranted a new kind of comfort, Dylan found. Returning from a recon trip, panting, roughed up, she made him pull the truck over the side of the road. She guided his hand into her jeans, her own palm sliding into his pants, all adrenaline and excess energy. When he was about to come, and he had already got her off, she unzipped him, pulled him out, sunk her mouth down over his cock.

They held hands all the way back home, and it was easier than using words. _I’m here. I won’t leave. I have your back._

There were two biters by the gate when they got there.

“I’ll get them,” Lisa said, her knife already in her hand.

“Careful,” Dylan said, because there was no point in telling her ‘no.’ He had a gun, anyway. Once she cleared the gate, and pulled it back, he drove in and she locked up behind him.

“I can connect up those solar panels if they’re working,” she said, once they got inside, and Dylan smiled at her over his shoulder, hands in the basin of the sink.

“Electricity?”

“Probably,” she shrugged, “If they work…”

“I think I got the better end of the deal when we ran into each other,” he said, “I got an MIT-graduated engineer and you got… me. Yes. Yes, you win.”

“Probably,” she shrugged, but her grin gave her away. After, she kissed him and told him all the things that made him matter.

 


End file.
